Friday 6th June 2025 ~ Issue 16

Child Safety Statement

School Values

Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Respect Our School - Hormati Sekolah Kita

Do Your Best - Lakukan Yang Terbaik

Help Others to Succeed - Bantu Teman Untuk Berhasil

Important Dates

TERM 2

Monday 9th June - King's Birthday Long Weekend

Friday 13th June - Assembly ~ Peg Collery Awards

Friday 27th June - Assembly

Friday 4th July - Last day of Term 2

TERM 3

Monday 21st July - First day of Term 3

Friday 25th July - Grandparents' Day - details to come

Friday 1st August - Assembly

Sunday 31st August - Sacrament of First Eucharist

Friday 5th September - Father's Day celebration at school

Thursday 18th September - Last day of Term 3 - 3.15pm finish

PUPIL FREE DAYS IN 2025

Friday 19th September - Structured Literacy

Wednesday 17th December - Last day of the school year for students

ADVANCE NOTICE

Wednesday 17th September - St Mary's School Concert at Hamilton PAC

From the Principal

Dear Families,

This Sunday our sacramental candidates will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation at our 10.30am Parish Mass. This will be a wonderful celebration for the children and their families. We wish them all of God's blessings as they continue their faith journey.

This week we have had a number of our very talented students participating in both the Hamilton and Warrnambool Eisteddfods. Congratulations to all the children who have been competing. We are very proud of you all.

Speaking of proud, Rocco Causer in Gr 4 has been selected to be a background artist in a new TV series that is being filmed in Warrnambool. We cannot disclose any more information but we cannot wait to see and hear all about it when it hits the big screen. Well done Rocco!

This weekend is the King's Birthday long weekend and may prove to be very timely! Over the last two weeks we have had a small but concerning number of hands on incidents among our students when out on the yard. For the next two weeks we are going to have a behaviour blitz on keeping our hands and feet to ourselves and would greatly appreciate your support from home. Our focus will be on using our words when things go wrong and seeking help when needed. 

Have a wonderful long weekend, shared with those you love,

Terrielynn

PENTECOST

This coming Sunday, 8th June is The Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost (Greek for 50th day) is celebrated by Christians 50 days after Easter and marks the day that the Holy Spirit became known to the apostles while they were cowering and hiding behind locked doors following Jesus’ resurrection. After receiving the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostles immediately went out and preached Jesus’ message to everyone—even those who could not understand.

Come Holy Spirit,
blow away division and despair.
Light your flame of courage and hope in us
and warm our hearts with wisdom and love.
Be our Helper, as we seek your ways of justice.
Be our Comforter, as we share your peace with our wounded world.
Be our Advocate, as we call for the fullness of life for all. 

Amen.

Catholic School Culture

MASS TIMES – 2025                                                 

Hamilton: Saturday 6pm and Sunday 10.30am                                  

Dunkeld: Sunday 8.30am                  

Glenthompson:  Sunday 8.30am

Penshurst: Sunday 8.30am

Condolences

We send our deepest sympathy to the Picken family following the passing of Jed's great grandmother, Val. The family is very much in our thoughts and prayers.

Sacramental Program 

On Sunday at 10.30am, our sacramental candidates will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Our deepest thanks to all those who have supported them on their faith journey.

Jonty, Mason, Amelia, Jed, Sophie, Mila, Naithan, Jet, Jayda, Nate, Mya, Olive, Indiana, Marlee, Selena, Audrey, Samuel, Selina, Austin.

Peg Collery Awards

At our Week 8 assembly we will award our Peg Collery Scholarships to three students, from P/1/2, 3/4 and 5/6. These awards are very important to our school. Peg Collery and her husband Joe were parishioners and, although they didn't have their own children, they were active members of our school community. Upon Peg's death, Joe set up a scholarship fund for our school, to be awarded to three students each year. The criteria is that these students live our school values and are hard working, kind people. Students are nominated by the staff in each area and our Leadership Team makes the final decision.

Diocesan Strategic Plan

Part of the work that was done in putting the strategy together was to look at our ever changing world and recognise the challenges that our children face as they are growing up. The areas that were considered were the changing face of the Catholic Church, climate change, growing equalities, demographic shifts, technological advancement and changes to the way we work, learn and live. Consideration was given to all of this in looking to the future of education.

Learning and Teaching

School Wide Positive Behaviours

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support is:  A multi-tiered framework for establishing the social culture and behavioural supports needed for a school to achieve behavioural and academic outcomes for all students.

For the next two weeks at St Mary’s, we are working with our students on the following:

RESPECT - care for the people in our school

SAFETY - keep hands and feet off others

RESPONSIBILITY - seek help when needed

Assembly Awards

Congratulations to the following students who received an award last Friday for our value, Respect Our School.  We are so proud of you!  Congratulations go to Giorgina Calvano, Milla Haley, Elijah Holyoak, Quinn O'Brien, Harlow McKenzie, Olive Perriman, Indi Perriman and Aubrey Lowcock. 

Reporting - Changes to the Reporting of Numeracy

This year we are reporting on the new Numeracy Curriculum. The staff have been teaching to this in 2025 and will be reporting on this too. One of the changes to our reporting is that instead of reporting to several strands - Number and Algebra, Measurement, Space etc - we will now report to 'Mathematics' which will include all of the strands. Look out for this when our new look reports come home later in the term.

Staffing

At the end of Term 2, Teagan Wishart will be taking Maternity Leave until the beginning of 2026. Leroy Perez will move into her role and we are very grateful to him for providing continuity of learning for the 5/6s. We are now in the process of appointing a part time teacher to join Chris Minney.

Sports Catch Up

After a very busy term, things have become quiet on the sporting front for the rest of Term Two, but there are several sporting opportunities coming up across Term Three. It shall be a very busy and fun term!  I will have some more updates for you next week.

Dates for your Diary

TERM THREE

July

Thursday 24th July - State Cross Country @ Melbourne

Friday 25th July - Hockey 7’s @ Hamilton 

August

Thursday 14th August (TBC) - AFL 9’s @ Hamilton 

Wednesday 20th August - District Netball @ Hamilton 

September 

Tuesday 9th September - Grade 3/4 Hooptime @ Hamilton

Friday 12th September - Grade 5/6 Hooptime @ Hamilton 

TBC Primary Golf and Table Tennis 

Elise Gordon

egordon@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Wellbeing

Child Safety ~ Child Safe Standards

The new Child Safe Standards (eleven in total) came into effect in July 2022 and are a
vital part of what we do here at St Mary’s. But, what do these standards look like in practice? Each week, we will look at a standard in closer detail.

Standard 8 ~ Staff and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge, skills and awareness to keep children and young people safe through ongoing education and training.

At St Mary’s we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. At the beginning of each year, staff are taken through an induction process, which involves our Child Safety policies and procedures. Our staff also complete annual Mandatory Reporting training. Both Tania and Shannon conduct inductions for new CRT’s and /or contractors that come onsite - to ensure they are aware of and agree to our code of conduct when it comes to Child Safety. Child Safety is a standing item on all Staff, Leadership and School Advisory Council meeting agendas. All of these actions help to keep Child Safety at the very front of our minds!

More information can be found on the Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP) website - the link to this website is below.

I have also included a flyer from SchoolTV with information about an upcoming webinar, featuring Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and Susan McLean.  This is part two of a two part series and will be held on Wednesday 18th June at 7:30pm. This is the second part of the webinar that was held in March.  Even if you were unable to attend the first part, this would still have a lot of valuable information and is well worth tuning in to. Scan the QR code to register for this important event.

Each term, the eSafety Commissioner runs free Parent Webinars on a variety of topics around internet safety and the online world. The topics are listed on the flyer below.  If your would like to find out more information, including the dates available and to register, you can do so here.

Tania Stevens
tstevens@smhamilton.catholic.edu.au

Leadership and Stewardship

School Advisory Council AGM

Our School Advisory Council (SAC) AGM is on Wednesday 11th June. We are very pleased to know that Joyce Nedziwe and Rhassell Mhasho will take on their second term. We thank them for their generosity.

School Fees

Statements were sent home last week.  All school accounts for 2025 are due and payable by 30/06/2025.  This does not apply if you have a regular payment plan in place or if you have recently spoken to Helen about your fees. Please send final payments into the office as soon as possible.  

If you are having difficulties in paying your account please contact Helen or Terrielynn.   Thank you.  Helen

Sickness

If your child is sick they should stay at home to stop the spread of illness to other students and staff. You should seek medical attention for your child as needed, including about when to return to school.

Kitchen Garden Green Light!

I am delighted to let our community know that our Kitchen Garden program will be starting in June! 

With a lot of work happening behind the scenes by our amazing volunteers, we are kitting out the kitchen and planning recipes that we can make according to the produce we will have.

There is much education that goes with a program like this, both for leaders and students. So, when it is your child’s turn to cook, make sure you ask them all about it!

We will start with groups of approximately ten students per cook and we will ensure that everyone gets to cook. We will share plenty of photos and recipes with you all.

I’d like to thank Monique Sobey who has championed us to get this program up and running and through her leadership position with the Kitchen Garden Foundation, has supported us financially, allowing us to purchase equipment and supplies that seemed so far out of our reach.

Catherine Egan

School Beanies

We have navy blue school beanies the students are allowed to wear (they have our school name on them) here for sale at the office for $15 each.  If you would like to purchase one for your child, please come to the front office. You can pay cash or card.

Community Engagement

Assembly

Our next assembly will be on Friday 13th June at 2.45pm - note the earlier time. We will be presenting our Peg Collery Scholarships on this day.

Community Events